Spider
by Charlotte K
Summary: In which Sherlock needs an escape from his raging mind, and what started off as a little high turns into a mission to get the spiders and butterflies out of the wall before John comes home. Could be triggering, just putting that out there. Who knows.


I once told John that it must be nice not being me, and that my mind is like a rocket, about to tear itself apart on the launchpad. It's true. It's entirely true. It never shuts off, and it never, ever slows down. My mind is like a hurricane, crashing over one thought to the next to the next, until sometimes, I end up feeling drenched. It might bring me to solve the most compelling cases in England, but then it might wash me in vivid, horrifying nightmares. In my past, there was only one way in which I felt I could truly escape the perpetual madness. And while John is away, I am revisiting this past method.

Oh, the things I'm seeing right now.

Spiders. Thin, whispy, ghostly spiders of all sizes; crawling up the walls, across the floor, over the furniture. Is that blood running down the walls, filling the bullet holes, or could it just be paint? The antennae, then the body, and then the wings of the brightest orange Monarch butterfly slowly emerge from one of the holes in the wall. It flits past my face, teasing me, taunting me. I reach out to grab it, but it disappears. More butterflies start crawling through the bullet holes. Wings of lime green, lemon yellow, and colours I can't even remember the names of float past my face, through my hair, and then back into the wallpaper. The skull on the mantle curls and contorts its jaw into a sinister smile, and a hollow eye socket squints slowly until it winks right at me.

"No," I tell it. The words fall from my mouth. Literally. The two letters fall to the floor, bounce up in opposite directions, and vanish. "You don't have eyelids. You can't wink at me. Stop. Stop smiling like that. Stop!" The skull finds itself being hurled across the room, leaving a thin trail of sparkles in the air behind it. The sparkles fade away slowly, and the skull lands with a sickening _crack_. That skull was a friend of mine. _Was_.

I can almost hear my mold cultures growing in their petri dishes on the counter. I know I hear the spiders. I can hear their long, thin, spindly legs as they crawl over everything. I hear whispers. The butterflies are still inside the wall, and I can hear their frantic flitting and flapping as they try to escape once more. My heart is the loudest, though. It's vibrating inside my chest, the way my brain likes to vibrate around in my skull. The beating echoes throughout the flat, and with each _thump-thump_, the colour of everything in the room flashes brighter and brighter. I'm starting to hear too many things at once. Too many sounds. The hum of the refrigerator softens and raises in pitch, until it sound like a woman's voice, humming a tune I used to know. Mother. It sounds like mother's voice now, humming some sort of song, some _lullaby_, that I once knew as a boy.

The door slams. I turn around quickly to find it pushing itself wide open again. It slams a second time. The fridge hums, the door slams, the spiders crawl, the mold grows, and the butterflies whisper. Someone chuckles. The skull in the corner of the living room grows louder and laughs harder, until it is nearly hysterical. The broken lower jaw lays on the ground beside it, but the smiling eye caverns give away the source of the laughter. My face grows warm, and I can feel the blood rushing in my ears. I was supposed to shut off my mind. I didn't want _this_ to happen! The sounds are cut off immediately at the metallic _plink, plink, plink_ of the faucet dripping. The faucet, though. John was supposed to fix that yesterday. He was supposed to fix it- he had his tools and everything- yet the water continues to drip.

John.

Oh, my God.

He's going to come home, and he's going to see all of this. There will be spiders, butterflies, and streaking glitter trails all over the flat. Then there are the noises. The door will probably slam on him, too. He's going to come home to find this mess. He'll come home to find me. And when he sees me, he'll know. I can't hide this from him. I can't hide my trembling limbs, my sweating. I can't quiet my heartbeat. My pupils will be blown wide open. And most of all, I can't hide the syringe. Where did I even put it? I check both arms to make sure it's not still hanging from the skin, and a wave of panic washes over me.

I don't remember where I put the syringe, and I don't know when John is supposed to be coming home. I can't clean this all up before he comes back from the surgery! What will I do about the spiders? And the butterflies? How many are there, anyway? I can't just destroy the wall to get them out! I brace myself against the table, trying to think, trying to come up with _some_ sort of idea. I ball my hands into a fist, and I feel something in my right palm. How could I have forgotten? The syringe! The syringe is still in my hand! As carefully as I can, I wrap it in a dishcloth, drop it into a snack container, and chuck it into the rubbish bin under the sink. Maybe that will hide it from John when he takes out the trash next. But there's still the mess in the flat. The spiders, the butterflies, and all the noise hasn't gone away yet.

A vehicle pulls up outside. A cab. I'm finished. I'm dead if John finds out. When I had told him about my past, about this certain way of trying to shut off my brain, he was horrified. Devastated, even. "No drugs at all" had become our first rule as flatmates. I've broken that rule, but I couldn't help it. The cab pulls away, and I hear him take the first three or four of the seventeen steps up to the flat. I've run out of options.

I shut myself into my bedroom closet. It's dark, it's cold, and my breaths bounce off the walls and come back to hit me in the face, but at least he won't find me. I curl my knees close to my chest.

"Sherlock?" John's voice sounds too faraway to be coming from the kitchen. "Sherlock, are you home?"

I say nothing. I lean against the wall, holding my breath, trying to will this high to just_ be over with_.

"Sherlock?" I can hear his footsteps through the house. He hasn't taken his shoes off yet. He's looking for me. It's only a matter of time until he finds out where I am...

I awaken with a start. Good God, was I dreaming? I had to have been! The closet walls around me tell me otherwise, though. John has thrown the door wide open. He stands over me with his arms crossed, a puzzled look on his face. Oh no, he knows. He fucking _knows_.

"You okay?" is all he asks.

"I can explain!" I stand up quickly, and whack my head on the closet shelf. John reaches out a hand and pulls me out of my closet. We stand there for a moment, just staring at one another.

"You had gone to your Mind Palace?" he offers. I nod slowly.

"Yes," I reply. "I suppose. I was thinking. And then-"

"And you ended up in the closet."

"Yes."

"And you fell asleep there."

"It appears I have." John sighs.

"I was worried about you, Sherlock," he says tersely. "And I found something in the rubbish that you might find interesting." Here it is. A lecture. A fight, perhaps.

I say nothing.

"How come?" is all he asks.

"I was thinking. But I couldn't shut off my mind. I never can! But for once, I just needed to... escape, I suppose." John's face falls. The very sight of this sends a pang of guilt through my chest. I've disappointed him; the worst thing I could ever be capable of doing.

"Have the effects worn off?" I look around me. I push past him and head for the living room, and he follows closely behind. The flat is silent, honestly, beautifully silent. The spiders are gone, and so are the butterflies. The skull is sitting on the coffee table now, still broken, with a couple of molars sitting beside it. I shiver at the sight of it. It stares blankly at me, not smiling, not winking, and thankfully, not laughing. I don't think I want to do this again.

"Yes," I reply. "They have." John nods slowly.

"Okay." He stares off at nothing for a moment, and then fixes his eyes back on me. "Before this time, when did you last... do this?"

"Before we met," I answer. It's the truth, too. "I'm not lying to you."

"I know." He pauses. He takes me gently by the arm. "But this is dangerous, Sherlock. Promise me that you won't do this again."

I nod slowly. "I promise, John."

A little black spider darts across the wall.


End file.
